From his vantage point high above the city, the tall blonde haired man took in the mythical spires of Coruscant as they rose skyward, seemingly fighting among themselves to see who would be the first to touch the clouds. Artificial light bathed this section of the city in a morning glow, Coruscant’s sun being reflected down upon the city by one of the big orbital mirrors in high up in orbit. While all the time, a seemingly infinite stream of airborne traffic wove to and fro, darting in between the towering monoliths that made Coruscant the premier planet in the entire galaxy.

Although he had seen this sight many times before, today it was as if Jovar Drax were seeing Coruscant again for the first time; and in a way he was. For most people on their first visit to the capital planet, their first view of Coruscant was breathtaking, and a myriad of different designs and styles assaulted their eyes, while the roar of traffic and whistling of the wind as they looked out over the city hammered at their ears; they saw the majesty of the planet, its beauty.

Jovar Drax saw nothing of these things.

To him his first view of Coruscant came with new eyes… eyes that saw the planet for what it was; the heart of evil. Shifting his gaze to the north he looked to the dark shadow on the horizon, where like a spider nestling at the centre of its web, sat the Imperial Palace. His destination; or close enough.

Jovar let out a breath, one he hadn’t realized he had been holding, and stepped away from the balcony railings of the Sky Hook. He turned to survey the crowd of humans and aliens that were milling around the floating garden, passing the time before their transports departed to the planet proper. Looking down at his hands he noted his knuckles were white where he had been gripping the railing so hard, hatred and anger flowed so easily from him, and had their been any Force sensitives around they would have been shocked to feel the waves of rage that emanated from off of him.

Blinking bleary eyed against the morning sun, he turned and began to saunter along the balcony of the botanical garden. With little or no space devoted to greenery downside, this Sky Hook and those few like it, represented about all the planet life one was likely to find on Coruscant; and like most things about the planet it was a luxury that was only available to the rich. Ninety nine percent of the population would likely never get to see the wondrous flora and fauna that resided oddly enough, in the sky above them.

Jovar forced himself to take a deep breath, reaching out to trail his fingers along the edge of a large leafy plant, which at his tough changed from a bright green to a dark moody red. He wasn’t sure why he had taken the time to visit the botanical garden – time he probably didn’t have – and yet it had somehow seemed vital that he do. With a puzzled shake of his head he moved deeper into the garden, following a winding path into the verdant green heartland of an artificially planted forest.

As the time passed, he began to feel calmer, more at home in this strange alien world than anywhere else he had visited in his life; and if perhaps not for the handful of annoying tourists that he came upon with annoying frequency, he might have imagined himself alone on some desolate world, a world at peace with itself.

But alas that was something that could never be… at least not yet. So much had changed in his universe of late, suddenly and drastically, each event happening one after the other, never giving him chance to come to terms with it… until now.

He sighed, relishing this peaceful interlude in what had been a violent life, but a glance at his chrono told him he had lingered here far too long. He was here on Coruscant for a reason, one that would brook no excuses nor distractions; he was here for revenge, revenge on those he had once called brother… and on a man who he would once upon time have given his life for without a moments hesitation.

Funny, he brooded as he walked back towards the shuttle bay of the Sky Hook, how quickly things can change.

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The cantina was unremarkable from the outside; and its interior did little to help set it apart from the thousands of other bars that littered the mid levels of Coruscant. Nevertheless, Jovar Drax knew the Shadow Star Cantina’s value; knew well that lurking below the layers of dirt and grim, behind the vacant eyed stares of the cantina’s patrons, and underneath the faded wall hangings, was a nest of information. A nest geared specifically, towards harvesting information for the Imperial Security Bureau.

Dressed in a nondescript pair of plain spacers pants, with a dark blue shirt thrown over the top, he attracted little attention as lounged against the wall of a small booth at the back of the cantina, where he had been nursing a beer for the better part of an hour. His eyes occasionally wandered across the room, taking in the handful of regulars, and noting the comings and goings of another half dozen beings that stayed for one drink, and one drink only.

The Shadow-Star was a drop off point, an ISB funded cantina used for the sole purpose of effectively transferring information between agents and their sources. Such knowledge was known only to those in the Security Bureau, and to a select few outside of the ISB; Jovar had been one of those select few. As a cantina, there were also those sentients who wandered in to the place with no knowledge of its true purpose, and that suited the ISB just fine, all the better to add to the front. However, those people were put under shrewd observation from the minute they entered, to the minute they left; just as Jovar had been.

As if on queue, a slim shaven headed man approached his booth, and with a nod of greeting slid in opposite him. “Evenin’,” the man smiled, showing a row of pearly white teeth, and breath that smelt vaguely of alcohol.

Outwardly Jovar didn’t react, but secretly he was smiling inside; how predictable the ISB were. His plan had been simple in the extreme, and all he had had to do to be approached by one of the Cantina’s minders was to sit on his drink for an hour, and show just a little bit too much curiosity in the activities of the cantina’s other patrons.

“Buy you a drink?” the Minder offered, his tone of voice friendly, disarming.

“No,” Jovar declined, staring at the man, summing him up. He was relatively slim, yet muscular underneath his dirt stained tan shirt, and from the way he moved Jovar knew he was more than capable of taking care of himself in a fight.

“Damn, that’s cold,” the man made a show of sighing, “I see you over here, nursing the same drink you’ve had for an hour, and I figure you’ve run out of credits. So, wadda I do, but being the good natured bloke that I am, I offer to buy you another drink and you say no?”

The Minder’s face went slack, the pretense of the friendly drunk vanishing in an instant. “Then what are you doing here then?”

Jovar smiled, an unnerving sight. “I’m sitting here, marveling at the stupidity of the ISB. Had you anybody with a brain running this place, you would have marked me as a hostile outsider the minute I walked in the door, as it is, you’ve taken the better part of an hour to even approach me.”

Confusion passed across the bald man’s face, and Jovar could almost here him thinking, wondering just who this man sitting across from him was; a superior officer perhaps? Who else would know of the Shadow Star’s real owners?

Before the man had time to ask anything, he suddenly found himself flying backwards to slam into the wall of the booth. The Minder’s eyes bulged, partly with the incredibility of how fast Jovar’s fist had come out of nowhere, and partly because his windpipe was now totally caved in. As the man’s hands went to his throat, Jovar stood, watching the bar for signs of life; two men had spun around from their position at the bar, and had begun to take brisk steps towards him.

Ignoring the gurgling sound of the dying Minder behind him, Jovar stood his ground, waiting for the men to reach him. He felt the quiver of apprehension flutter through him as it always did before a battle; how he had missed that feeling! The two ISB agents reached him together, evidently used to fighting in a pair, not giving an opponent even the smallest advantage by engaging them one after the other.

Jovar didn’t care though, his hands darted out at the same time, palms flat as they struck both agents separately, knocking them off balance but not taking them down. It was enough however, to disrupt the flow of their fighting style, and give Jovar that deadly moment he needed to take one of them out of the fight; forever. He stepped left, pivoting around the first man and brining his elbow up and into his face as he moved past him; bone shattered, but the man did not cry out.

Jovar felt a certain grudging respect for the man at this, it was almost a shame to have to kill him he mused for a moment; but only a moment. In the next instant he was behind the stunned man, and grasping the man’s head firmly between his powerful hands he wrenched the man’s neck violently to the right. He fell lifeless to the floor, like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

By now the second man had recovered fully, but had been out of position and unable to prevent his companions death. Barely three seconds has passed. Dark feral eyes met Jovar’s, anger sparkling in them, eager for vengeance. Jovar smiled, he understood the man’s need, it was after all what drove him himself; was in fact his single purpose in life now. Too bad… too bad the man was on the wrong side, in another life Jovar would willingly have fought alongside a man such as this; but life was, what life was.

The agent attacked, kicks and punches thrown with lightening speed assaulted Jovar, but he blocked every one, backing up only a single step. The ISB agent’s technique was flawless, his strikes fast and hard; but his training in the martial art of the Echani barely touched the surface of what Jovar knew. This man was a mere apprentice; Jovar was a Master.

He dodged left, then right, shifting positions and waiting for his opening to present itself, which it did in due course. They exchanged a flurry of savage blows, hands moving with blurring speed, feet changing position constantly, until finally Jovar broke through the man’s guard and hit him solidly in the face, snapping his head backwards and stunning the man. The agent was never given a chance to recover, a kick to his left kneecap brought him to the ground, and then before he even knew what had happening he felt Jovar’s hands clamp around his head. He died in exactly the same manner as his partner had only moments before.

The cantina lay in stunned silence. Fear played in the eyes of the cantina patrons; bureau and non bureau alike. Non one made a move to engage him, and the only sounds were those coming from the balding minder who still clawed desperately at his throat, as if he could force open his windpipe and let air back in. Finally, a nervous looking bartender spoke up, “You’d better go,” he swallowed through dry lips, “There’s squad of Stormtroopers on the way.”

Major Christof Vartan surveyed the interior of the Shadow Star cantina, taking in the bodies of three of his finest operatives, not to mention the eight white clad Stormtroopers that littered the ruined interior, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. One man, that was what each and every witness had said; one man had done all this. It was all but unthinkable, and had this been any other cantina on Coruscant then Vartan would have been temped to dismiss the reports as the ravings of several deluded minds under the influence of an intoxicant. Unfortunately this wasn’t any other cantina, this was the Shadow Star, owned and operated by the Imperial Security Bureau. The testimony of its patrons was beyond reproach.

“Can you believe this, Major?” his aide, Lieutenant Gross, asked as he strode across the cantina to Vartan’s side, deftly stepping over a disembodied white arm. “This guy takes down three of our best, then calmly waits for a squad of eight Stromtroopers to show up, takes them down and then escapes into the night.”

“I have no trouble believing it;” Vartan replied levelly, “the proof is all around us.”

“But why?” a puzzled frown crossed the young Lieutenant’s face. “What was the point?”

With his hands loosely clasped behind his back, Vartan casually strode over the remains of one of the Stormtroopers, his charcoal black eyes studying the dead man’s still gleaming armor. Or perhaps more precisely, studying the diagonal cut that ran from the shoulder to hip across the chest plate. A common vibrosword wouldn’t cut this cleanly through Stormtrooper armor, whatever had done this was something special, but why use a blade when a blaster would do the job just as cleanly?

“I think the point was to send us a message,” Vartan answered carefully, a terrible suspicion tickling the back of his consciousness.

“And that message being?” Gross prompted.

Vartan continued to study the dead Stormtrooper for a moment longer before shrugging, “I’m not sure,” he admitted, “Perhaps it’s a warning? Or a threat?”

“But why not be clear about it?” Gross wondered.

“That I don’t know,” Vartan sighed, “However I have a suspicion that whoever did this is toying with us, and that this won’t be the last we hear of him. Either way he’s made it clear that his martial prowess is far beyond that of any standard trooper or agent, and that is his first mistake.”

“Major?”

“Think about it Lieutenant,” Vartan chided, “There can not be that many groups or organizations around that have such a high level of combat training, and if we can narrow down the possibilities we are one step closer to finding out this mans agenda.”

“Yes Sir,” Gross looked thoughtful, and suitable chastised. He was a good officer, Vartan thought, but still young yet, without the wisdom and experience that age bring; in time though he’d learn.

“First things first, pull the security feed and run it through the database. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and our mysterious attacker will be on file. If not I want you to start drawing up a list of possible organizations our man might have belonged to, it’s also worth having his fighting style analyzed, look for any unique markers that might identify him.”

“Yes, Sir,” Gross snapped a salute and began to head towards the exit.

“And one last thing Lieutenant,” Vartan halted him, “Have the lab find out what sort of weapon was used to kill the Stormtroopers, according to our witnesses it was some sort of glaive, I want to know precisely what sort.”

With a nod Gross departed, leaving Vartan alone once again with that sinking feeling in his stomach. If he was right about the identity of the man they were after, then there was going to be hell to pay before he was caught…